Santa Clara Vanguard Cadets - 2008 DCI Open Class World Champions
By Larry Sacks
"The show was amazing. That's all I can say, just amazing," said Brandon Brown. "Today's show was the best." "Our show was really good. Everything clicked and went really well," agreed Adam Tsukamoto. Eric Stuber concurred “We got off the field and we could all feel it. We knew we had a great show regardless of the score. We’re just really excited right now." "I screamed at the top of my lungs at the end of the show, that's what kind of a show it was. The scores really don't matter. We had a really fun time getting here, and all of our hard work paid off with a great performance."
Brandon, Adam and Eric’s opinions were about the Santa Clara Vanguard Cadets actions on August 9, in Bloomington Indiana’s Memorial Stadium. That’s where the Santa Clara Vanguard Cadets won their first ever Drum Corps International Open Class Championships. Their 2008 program "Perspectives" barely beat the Blue Devils of Concord’s B program "Flight" by just .050. The Santa Clara Vanguard Cadets (SCVC) finished with a final score of 96.825. This was the second time the Corps has won a World Championship. The first time was in 2000 in College Park, Maryland with their program, Journey From The Darkness.
The Blue Devils earned a Silver Medal with a 96.775 and the Jersey Surf (of Camden County, NJ) finished third with a 96.050. Robert Ripley, the Vanguard Cadets' Corps Director, said he couldn't be more proud of the Corps' performance. "Today's performance for the Vanguard Cadets was the best of the season," said Ripley. "It's been a lot of fun playing cat and mouse with all the other corps and it's been a great season for the Open Class drum corps. I think the better everybody is, the more exciting it is for the fans."
The Vanguard Cadets also took top honors in Brass Performance, Visual Performance and Percussion Performance. They won the Music Caption, earned second in the General Effect Caption and fourth in the Visual Caption. According to Jeff Fiedler, SCVC’s Chief Executive Officer, “The performance captions are all the individual assessments of the strength of the performers from an "up-close" standpoint. The judges are on the field and are only a few feet from the performers and look at their individual abilities and how well they are trained in the methods and techniques of each organization, performing from an individual standpoint. The Music Caption takes the Brass and Percussion Performance Captions, as well as the Music Ensemble Judge into its combination of scoring. The Cadets won brass performance, percussion performance and took second in ensemble music, thus winning the "Music Caption."
The Corps' high music scores were just what they needed to put them over the top. "The Corps had an incredible performance this afternoon. Everything we worked on during the season showed up today," said Kohei Mizushima, the Vanguard Cadets' Percussion Caption Manager of the August 9 performance. "The outcome of the event was very unexpected, and we competed against a lot of great corps. We feel very lucky and humbled to receive these high honors."
The Vanguard Cadets travel approximately four weeks during the summer months across the United States and Canada performing in competitive field shows and parades while providing instruction for novice through the experienced members in the areas of brass, percussion and color guard. Membership is primarily open to those between the ages of 12 and 18. The Vanguard Cadets have been a Drum Corps International (DCI) Open Class (formerly Division II/III) Finalist every year the Corps has appeared in DCI World Championships (1991, 1993, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007, and 2008). The Corps has also competed in the DCI Division I Quarterfinals in 1993 and the DCI Division I Semifinals in 2000.
The Vanguard Cadets are the primary training group for membership in the Vanguard. The Santa Clara Vanguard was formed in 1967. SCV has the distinction of being the only organization to maintain its elite membership on the Drum Corps International Board of Directors since the inception of DCI in 1972. They are the first organization in DCI history to have two drum and bugle corps as open class member corps in the elite Top 25 of DCI (1993) and the elite Top 17 of DCI (2000).
